28mm historical fantasy war gaming

Saga: Age Of The Wolf. Warband and first impressions.

So Omer my good friend and main Saga adversary managed to get a copy of Gripping Beasts Age Of The Wolf, a new campaign system for SAGA, which we have both been eagerly awaiting.

My Four point warband for Age Of The Wolf. Made up of some of my newly painted Irish figures. Lead by Máirtín Mahon (Warlike Bear), Scourge of the Jomsvikings.

I first learnt to play saga using a 6 point warband and we had just start playing regularly with 8 points, so going down to 4 points, which is what you begin your AOTW campain with seem strange to me at first though I soon adapted and have tabled Omer on our first 2 campaign seasons. (Although casualties and warlord death are handled differently in AOTW.)

The first thing I really liked about AOTW was the fleshing out of your Warlord who is named and given a motivation which you choose then 2 traits and 1 extra special rule which are randomly generated using dice making him a lot more varied and fun.

AOTW brings more of an ongoing story into your SAGA game something myself and Omer being lovers of stories myths and legends have always incorporated into our games anyway. A game called SAGA just begs the players to create one.

I liked how each season was also made up of randomly generated scenarios which are also affected by your style of play. Whether or not you chose to raid defend or campaign. As are your rewards of land wealth and reputation. Land, wealth and reputation also affect how many units of men of each type you can have in your warband. You also roll for fate at the end of a campaign as the name suggests the out come of this roll can be good or bad. This lends a lot of both diversity and tactics to the campaign giving the game play a lot of depth.

I like the system and am enjoying playing it🙂

AOTW Roster Sheet available to download from the Gripping Beast website.